You can’t peer inside someone’s head to know the motivations behind why a person acts the way they do. A autistic person will have different causal reasons for acting in a way that might look like an introvert from the outside.
I ran across a video that went over this and all the autistic reasons in the examples were the ones that resonated with me. I had even spent an hour debating back and forth with a therapist a few months earlier about one of the examples the video gave. The therapist was trying to apply the neurotypical view, and I was unknowingly arguing for the autistic view, trying to explain that I didn’t feel the way he was saying, but he couldn’t understand the nuance I was trying to explain. It was very frustrating. This happened many times, and I finally quit the day before getting the results from the testing.
I used to think like you. That’s why I actually got tested; I wanted to know for sure. It took over 6 months and cost around $3k. It’s not something a person is going to do on a whim to justify their fidget spinner collection. When I got the results, I spent the whole time asking about the tests. Could I have gamed it, objective vs subjective tests, etc. I spent decades trying to figure out what’s “wrong” with me. I didn’t come to this lightly or because it’s popular. It was the first thing that actually fit and made sense. And the more I learn, the more it fits and makes sense. The visibility in the mainstream helps people like me find the answers we have been relentless searching for our whole life, that everyone overlooks because of masking.
